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WHISPERINGS OF A -^ 



^ WIND=HARP. 



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WHISPERINGS OF A 

WIND^HARP 



BY ANNE THROOP. 



WITH A PRQSe POEM INTRODUCTION BY 

SADAKICHI HARTilANN. 
Price, One Dollar. 

Edition litnited to Five Hundred Copies. 

New York, 1897. 



And her favorite page, dressed in black with the 
psychological awkwardness and erotiO subtlety of some 
yoting I^re-Raphaelite maiden who for the first time 
has donned doublet and hose on the stage of life, 
scouring the country in search of such an instrument, 
came upon a dryad who with her white harp broke 
the ice of a frozen fountain where once, in soft lazu- 
lian days of yore, she and her argent playmates gam- 
boled in roundelays and laughed their silvery laugh. 

And as she lifted large cold pieces to the celadon 
sky and gazed as in a dream through their opalescent 
blank ness, the j>age silently took the battered harp, 
and hastened back to the white naked rocks, and its 
turreted castle of gloom. 

And the harp (not a door-harp that jiiigles Whenever 
somebody enters, but a true wind-harp) hung ia the 
castle hall, near a window flamboyant with ^ decadent 
faith, sounded forth whenever a breeze passed > by 
stra'nge accords of vague suggestion, confused dreams 
in the dawn-colors of a soul not yet awakened to life; 
and on days when no wind stirred through the silent 
plains of art, it seemed that its delicate strings uttered 
sighs by their own inner vibration : white, desolate 
hopes of joy and pain. 

The page's mistress was amused for a few' short 
hours, but still gazed -at the sea, the sky, and the flut- 
tering birds. Many a knight and pilgrim came to the 
castle, Whei:e song is dying, and marvelled ,at the 
strange murmurings of the harp, but absorbed in the 
miisic of their own singing souls, none realized 



what mad an^ loving dreams the harp might awake 
in sunnier climbs. 

The Jester had often mused, and as the summer 
stained with his kisses the barren land and tarnished 
the field with gold> he dryly remarked, *' Why do you 
not carry the Wind-harp into, the forest of warm 
liquid life ? There, swinging among the swaying tree 
tops, with the winds running their joyous - breath 
through the yibrant foliage, ^ it may— if not broken by 
the storms of passion— reverberate the symphonies of 
Nature, so that people far and near will pilgrim on 
gray moonlit roads to the Forest of Life, and listen to 
the songs of the Wind-harp/' 

SADAKICHI HAETMANIT. 



A WIND-HARP. 



XyHEN my coveting soul first came 

Into this light. 
How could it hold the Earth's sweet guerdon 
Of rich delight ? 

Color and Joy and Glamor and Dance and Song, 
And the Moon and Stars and Sun and Sea, 
Sweet and heavy, — and sweet and heavy 
The draught of Living for me ! 

Then all the wonderful, beautiful Winds swift stole, 

Out from the clouds swift stole 

And played on the harp of my Soul. 

Color and Joy and Glamor and Dance and Song 

Were their fingers f ree> 

And their eyes were the Moon and Stars and Sun and 

Sea — ' 

The swing and whirr of the Earth 
Their melody. 

Gray and strong were their wings 

Or soft and of rainbow hue — 

The languorous warmth ot the fruit-bearing Earth, 

and the spur and the prescient joy of ker cold 
Were the breath they blew. 



Laughter and bitter tears 

From me they wrung, 

Love and Grief, Darkness and 'Light, 

Were the songs they sung. 

But all so sweet, — not one to be lost, not one ! 

So with the Sun and the Sea in the Day for the eyes 

of the Winds, . • 

And the Moon and the Stars for the eyes of the Winds 

of the Night— , . 

With the passionate pulse of the throbbing strings as 

they burn and glow and sway 
From the fanning wings of the Wjnds, 
And the touch of their hands, 
' As they pause at my harp in their flight- 
Entranced and aglow at their wonderful lay 
I stand, in the great Winds^ wake ; 
Aglow, — as the mad strings break ! 

So how,, with my world-wrenchejd, wind-broken harp 
When I go from, this Day and this Night, 
How shall it bear the vibrance then 
Of a vaster Delight ? 

Up from the snapping, distended strings ^ 

Sound— a new sound ! — I had not heard, 

Like the fluttering, palpitant, final note of a bird. 

—Only the snapped string knows 

The whole of a sound, unloosed, complete. — 

Upward it goes, mingled and blent 

In one fine note, the cries of the separate strings, — 

As an ov:ertone of my harp, long-pent, . , 

Up, up, — and hovers and waits, as' though for a 

thinner sether, a wind more fleet, 
A wind more singing and sweet and thin. 



What is this Joy I am wandering in ? 

Joy, a new Joy with the soimd upsprings 

From the finally-throbbed -out, gladly-spent strings. 

As the change from sound to light may be clear. 

So, for the spirit-sense of an inner ear , 

As the inniogt song of the sound, it sings ; 

^^ I am the Life for thy new Light, 

Beyond this Light. 

The harp for the waves of the new Delight, 

For the fingers of rarer Winds to play 

Than played those old quivering strings away. 

I shall endure their melody 

As they pass singing miraculously. 

I am thy Song of the Earth, made whola, 

And the strong, new body for thy Soul ! '' 



THE MQON ^S A WITCH. 



'THE Moon 's a witch ! 

She has lived by herself,, austere and cold. 
And she knows all the mysteries ages old. 
The heart called Love in her is dead. 
But she wields a weird, subtle attraction instead,- 



Oh, the Moon ^s a witch ! 



She has let no heart on hers have play. 
Though hearts from others she 's drawn away ; 
'Tis frx)m them she 's learned the mysteries old. 
But the price for this, — that her heart is cold,-^ 



poor, sad witch ! 



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THE ELYES THAT DANCE IN THE 
DRIFTWOOD FIRE. 



T'HE elves thai dance in the driftwood fire 

They know the sound of the mermaid's lyre. 
And they have rattled the "^bones, perdie, 
That are mixed, with the coral in the sea. 

Oh, the tales in the driftwood fire ! 

And one flame red, and one flame blue, — 
The one is for palm, the othex for rue. 
The one for peace, and the .other for woe, — 
Ho I Ho ! — the elves in their dancing go. 

The merry and sad old driftwood fire ! 



THE GREAT GRAY ROCK AND THE SEA. 



'^TTA, HA ! your waves cannot cover me ! '' 
Said the Great Gray Rock to the Sea ; 
And the Summer-wind soothes her effort by. 
But the Winter comes with his hue and cry, 
^' Ho, ho, you have covered the Rock ! " cries he. 
But the Summer again makes the Gray Rock free. 

'^ Ah, ha ! " mocks the Rock, 
But the smiling Sea croons quietly. 



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" I am not worn nor less/^ says the Sea. 

'' But what has changed the Rock ? " quoth she, 

'' Who has changed the face of the Rock but the Sea?'' 

Is your base. Gray Rock, well set and sure ? 

Eor the lure of the Sea is a subtle lure ; 

'* My heart is the love' of all hearts,'' breathes she. 

*' Oh, I am pliant and sweet. 

Vehement, passionate, wild. 

My patient, pitiless fingers I wreathe 

About you— warm stupors of scent in my long hair 

breathe — 
I will carry you into my heart," says the Sea, 
'' To be in my heart to Eternity, 
For that is my love— is the love of the Sea ! " 

Which is the stronger, the Strong or the Sweet ? 

Ha ! the Great Gray Rock has loved the Sea ! 
Loved the passionate fingers for Life or Death, 
And the whirling hair, with its flower-breath. 
And the heaving bosom of the Sea ; 
And he at last in her bosom shall be 
Lulled and loved to Eternity. 

Oh, the love of the Strong for the Sweet ! 

Ah, ^he joy of the love of the Sea, 

And the lull and rest in her heart that be ! 



12 



THE aTRANGE OLD MAN OF THE SEA. 



'^TX/^HO at the window beckons and beckons. 

You — is it you—coming back for me ? '' 
Out on the sands through the mist and grayness. 
Goes the pale, old form of the Man of the Sea. 

A phantom breath is in the hallways, 
Oppressive- and near till she turns to see — 
Some haunting mock of the pitiless Sea Mail, 
Out of the depths of his Charnel Sea. 

In a high, bare room with long sash-windows 
The moths lie dead from long-dead flames. 
The wind stirs a cobweb in the rafters, 
Dry leaves blow through the window frames. 

The king-bird has left her nest in the eaves^ ledge. 
Her young are as strong Fith their wings as she. 
The summer is waiting the knock of autumn. 
But no knock comes from the drowned in the sea. 



'' High in my room with the summer-dance 
Of light and shade from the sash thrown wide. 
The wind blows my thin dress out on the floor. 
And swishes the soft young leaves outside. 

" The dai'k is making the ^ave-curves black. 
The king-bird has gone to his sleeping mate ; 
.Vt last I hear your step at the door,— 
It was long to wait. 



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^^ The moths flick the candle with their wings, 
The folds of my scarf from my shoulders fall ; 
I have wound in its meskes your neck and hair, — 
Despite you were so tall ! 

'^ A gust has blown the candle out. 
The cobweb in the rafters tears. 
The dead moths blow in a heap to my feet. 
The gust sweeps past me down the stairs, 

^' A shudder and chill are in the room. 
And in the place of the elfin light 
The dry leaves shake in the shadows instead ; 
I am here alone with the dark to-night." 

The washed dank seatoeed on the rocks 
Is like drowned dead men's hair . ' ' ' . 

That the Strange Old Man with his fingers corribs^ 
Who steals tvhat the eartli counts fair. 

'* I come again to the smouldering fire. 
The lamp goes flickering at the door ; 
Yon call me ! — A touch is on my eyelids. 
Surely your step was over the floor. 

'^ No one may find the Gaoler's key I 
It was only the touch of the hand of the mist, 
I heard the moan of the Wraith of the Sea, 
The wind went past me over the floor ; 
My dead may never corde back to me. 

*' And so some day they shall take me away. 
And I shall hear the roar of the Sea, 
And the Strange Old Man shall bury me.'' 



14 



THE SONG OF THE EAETH-BORN. 



T^HE Earth has told me a strange, strange tune, 

Out of her bosom, — . 

Her rune, her rune ; — 

Only to hear it, and sing all day 
That is my play, — my play. 

To hear it, and weep all night 
Is my plight, is my plight. 

Soon she her wonderful sleep will give ; — 
I sing and wail ; — . 

I live, I liye ! 



THE STUB-BLE FIELD, 



T WENT one day to a far off land, 

Some Land of Life with a wide, white day,. 
Of those countries wher^ men's wishes go. 
But mist-clouds veil the Journeying way. 

I went to the Landowner then and asked 

Why men were barred from' going there ; 
Wliy, when their hearts so loved and wished, 
" The mist-clouds rose where their feet would fare. 



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The Landowner smiled and took my hand. 
And. led me away to a dusk, lone place, — 

He let me rest at his feet/ and then 

To the day we had left he turned my face. 

Then he told me about a Stubble-field. 

That was near us there in the lonely gloom. 
Where the stubble he wished uprooted 

To give his choking flawers room. 

And I listened to what he was telling me. 
Of the pitiful flowers that could not grow. 

But I still cared little about this field. 
For the distant mystical Daylight^s glow. 

But while I looked a great cloud rose, 
And soon stood so dim a wall between. 

That, sighing, at last I turned my head 
Towards this place we ha'd reached, but I had not 
seen. 

Then the Landowner laughed and touched my eyes. 
And the mist was th^ Ether about th« World, — -. 

'" They would never notice my Stubble-field, 
If the colors of Daylight were kept unfurled ! ^' 



AN ALIEN. 



T STOOD beneath the Bridge of the World 

• By a still, deep Elver's bed. 
And heard the beat of the hurrying feet 
Of the Linng joining the Dead. 



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I stood so near to Nature's heart 

I knew lier secrets well, — 

Her rest aloof from the sad World's woof 

In the web of its heaven and hell. 



I dreamed of the Nature of long ago, 

When the good. god Pan was young. 

When reasoning thought and problems were 

naught. 
All was lived and loved and sung. 



The River flowed with a secret on, 

Its secret that all might know. 

If they 'd leave their strife for the gilt of life,- 

For the Peace that is deep below. 



Then the River called, and I followed on, — , 
I heard the sweet birds sing, — 
And the wind : that blew the secrets through 
The leaves and the loves of Spring. 



The Summer came, and the world was gone ; 
I had strajred to the river's start. 
Where it rippled and sang and. trembling sprang 
Straight from the warm Earth's heart. 



So I rested there and in wonder stayed 
Breathless and still with delight. 
And bathed my feet in the dappled sweet 
Till it gave me a strang-e, wild might. 



ir 



But I came back to the World again 

With its lonely, dusking light, 

With its sobbing wind of the days that 

sinned 
And buried themselves in the night. 

The lore of the World comes never again 

To those whd have seen Life's face, 

But to love the light, and the warm black night 

And the breath of the wind's embrace. ^ 

Yet here again,' in the midst of the World, 
Are the days when Pan was young. 
And I listen and dream, and ever the stream 
Sings the Earth-Mother's secret tongue. 



BIRD-SONa. 

OH, little bird, you drive me mad 
With that, your joyful song. 
You take me back to what I love, 
And things for which I long,— 

That inner joyful note of yours 
Tells of your home and mate. 
But mine may never come to me 
However long I wait. 

Oh, little bird, in your sweet song. 
Can ydu not tell to me 
Why, in this glad time of the year 
I may not happy be ? 



18 
THE BEAD SUMMER. 



T SAT with the warm, kind Summer 

In the glimmering, misty air. 
There passed me the brown September 
With draggled black leaves in her hair. 

The Summer clasped and kissed me. 
Lingered, then strayed apart — 
And I found him destd in September's day 
With draggled black leaves on his heart. 



BECAUSE THE TIME TO WAIT IS LONG. 



"OEOAUSE the time to wait is long, 

Arid that the earth is very fair. 
It seems strange I must stay at all 
With only gray-ash thoughts to spare. 

Because the Summer-time is past 
With all its wealth of warmth and love. 
To me the year is nothing now 
But griefs and griefs to rise above. 

To clamber up the slippery way. 

To look the pale things in the face ; 

And each day know so little done 

To make more small the stretching space. 



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And yet I know will come an qyQj — 
And its dusk flowers will seem most fair^- 
That with its gentle^ pitying breath 
Will blow its shadow on my hair. 

And in its kindly, closing gloom, 
Gathering the dusky flowers frail. 
Their path shall lead me back to find 
Again the old-time Summer^s trail. 



I KNEW THAT THE LOVE OE MY LIFE 
WAS DEAD. 



T KNEW that the LoTe of my Life was dead. 

Dead with a wide, cold empty stare ; 
I saw him lying there. 
Quiet and stark and fair. 

Oh, make him a casket of sweet wild rose. 
And bury him deep ! 
I cannot think of these earth-pale woes. 
Bury him deep ! - 

Bury him deep in the soft, cool ground— 
The day is gray — _^ 

The wind was making g. singing sound — 
It has blown "away. 



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THE GATES OF NIGHT. 

WIND-BLOWN down the paths of Nature, 

Hand in hand ; — 
God, let it happen I — , 

Light of the moon, and blue tniBt shimmering on 

the darkened trees. 
Still and invisible swing the gates of Night. 
What moment we pass in we' know not till we find 
Breaths of new secrets blown in that f^w Land. 



OUT OF THE WONDERFUL EAST. 

r)UT of the wonderful East 

Radiant, strange he came. 
With the light of his orient eyes 
And his mind a spirit flame. . 

Climbing and. climbing we went — 
How calm and white and grand ! 
Up to the snow topped peaks. 
To the silent cloud capped land. 

Colors over the enow — 
Purple and yellow and red- 
Transparent "luminous atmosphere 
Froiu a spirit-aura shed. ^ 

Ah, how the lightnings flash ! 
How the currents stir my soul ! 
The climax reached of a pinnacled joy 
Beyond despair's control. 



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The sombre joy of the peaks 
Pictured in changeless light. 
And his blown black' hair in the glow of the 

sky 
Is graven beyond the night. 



T^HE SONG OF THE WIND. 



VE who hear mj^ soulless crying. 

Mocking; dying, — 
Look ye, close below my flying, 
Eolls the Sm of Tears. 

Ye who see me flower-heads lifting, 
Perfume sifting. 

Think ye of the ships that, drifting, 
Scud to the Eog of Fears. 

Woe, woe 

All the World is Woe, 
Fear and woe — 

Weeping 
Underneath her sleeping. 
The sweat of the Fear-Fog quaffing 
With her laughing— 

— laugliingy laughing — 

Laughter — laughter 
Seek ye after. 

Oh, a snare, in Pleasure, of Care ! — 
— Care — 



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My breath is the voice of the World, 
In ihy strength Weal or Woe is hurled, 
From my wings Joy and Fe^r are whirled- 
From the Sky where dwell Joy and Fear. 



Mighty in drearness, 
Awful in clearness. 
Is the Great Fear. 



Loving with Night-time, 
Laughing with Day-time, 
Is the Great Joy. — 



The World is the Mortal 

Happy or grieving. 

As her Will works for her 

I am the Will of her, 

Singing or sighing. 

Helping or hindering. 

Praying, believing— 

She is the Mortal 

Fearful or Jubilant, 

As the Sky speaks to her — 



The World in her heart lives, 
I from her heart blow. 
To her the Sky gives. 

Swoop — swoop ! — 

Hoo — 00, my tall pine trees. 

How I go through you ! 

How I love you my straight pine trees, 

I have forgotten the sky. 



;e3 



Hoo — hoo ! 
Tall pine trees — tall pine trees; 
Where are you— ah, my tall pine trees — 
When I am in the sky ? — 
Hoo — ha ha ! 

Singing, singing !— 
- . . The earth is singing. 
Seas and forests shout ! 
With maddening rout. 
The sinuous, foam-haired mermen plunge and 

rush 
To keep pace with my gold-fleeced sheep 
That I drive to their folds on some far-off 
And ambered peaks. 
Where the deep .Joy sits like a hush 
Of sleep. — 
* Sleep! 

Earth i« weeping. 
Weeping, weeping — 
Oh! ho ho! 

Jubilant, jubilant, jubilant go,— 
Who heeds care with the Sun-winds blowing ? 
Who is it recks af the Sun's two specks 
Of Fear and Woe ?— 
Woe-- 

All the World is Woe — 



A RUDDERLESS BOAT. 







H, I have been given a rudderless boat 
Without or sheet or sail. 
But I am never afraid or lost 
In midnight or in gale. 



24 



For either side beneath my boat 

Hands hold it by the keel ;— 

They know the way and the Over-Seas Port, 

They ktiow my woe or weaL 

'And ever if the wares have seemed 
To roll in fathoms high. 
There is a laughing in their foam, 
A lulling as they die. 

When I seemed drifting out, the World 
Two oars had offered me. 
But I could only laugh at such 
For such a stormy Sea. 

For striking out for the open waste 
Away from the World's *' safe '' shores, 
Not even good ballast in my boat 
Would be her ^^ prudent " oars. 

Oh ho, Oh ho,— for the poor old World 
That thought I was her child !— 
For I was restless with love of the stars 
And strangely Sea-beguiled. 

The Sun and Stars and Sea are kin 
And carry their children between. 
The Stars in their deep silences, 
The Sea that holds their sheen. 

And when' the Sea is smooth and clear 
And all the Sky is fair, 
The water dabbling my hands will match 
The Sun's shine on my hair. 



25 



'^ Ah, ha !'' says the World, ''in boats like 

yours 
There are other than storms to meet, — 
There are pirate vessels on those high seafe 
And glaring death of heat/' 



But thieves and other skulking craft 
Are seldom far at sea — 
And if they were, not one would be worth 
A single fear from me. 



For the Sun, — if he grew too^flereely glad 
At his face in the heart of the Sea 
In such a love, — to die of light, — 
Death Phoenix-joy might be. 



So what if sometime like the foam I float. 
My hair for seaweed brown, — 
The stars will watch me into port 
Or watch where I go down. 



For though the Farthest Shore is fair, . 

I do not fear the Sea, 

And I would go down with my poor, vain boat 

To the Land where the lost ships be., . 



And if I may not yet find the Port 
And again must be buried by Time, 
I have had one magic of Sea and Sky. 
That summoned, unquestioned, sublime. 



26 



OUT OF THE WONDER HOUSE. 

A WHITE mist wound, about the house, 
^^ White and cold, 
Till the pale streaks. 

In rainbow colors, stretched across the skies 
And kissed aurora's gold. 

In a^high tower apart. 

Dream swept and still, 

A Maiden lay in the wonder house ; 

Cool breaths' crept over her eyes and mouth, 

As the dawn streaks climbed the hills. 

Out of the casement wide. 

In the soft pink 

The moon, fading and gibbous, hung. 

*^ Is it a sign " she said 

*' Dawn— and a white moon dead ?'* 

She crept her shivering down the stair 

" How is it in the fields instead ? 

My tower is so bare/' 

In the dawn-cold, green gold grass she stood. 

Laughed in the thin new air, 

About her feet the jewelled cobwebs shone ; 

'' Now will that thorny, pulsing life, 

I dreamed, be mine ? " 

Slow in the East, the gold sun's burnished 

chalice rose 
And splashed the red day's wine. 



IN PREPARATION : 

The Ironways of Manhattan 

and other New York Poems 

BY ANNE THROOP 

Price, $h, 

Sucscrlptions may now be sent 
Address 17 West 26th Street, New York. 









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